- Various announcements were made at a recent event organized by CII in IIT-Delhi
- Need to amend IPR policy to take care of changing opportunities, said a govt official
- Four science parks will be established in Kerala soon with participation from industry and start-ups
In a recent update from PIB, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organized the Global Science, Research and Innovation Summit titled ‘Fostering Science, Research and Innovation Partnerships’ under the aegis of India’s G20 Presidency at IIT Delhi. Saying that the institute would start M-tech in Robotics this year, the director of IIT-Delhi, Prof Rangan Banerjee appealed to the industry to support this mission. According to him, CII should work with the industry to sponsor at least 300-400 PhD through a new model to develop market-ready products. Various eminent personalities, including Mr Vipin Sondhi, Chairman of CII National Mission on Technology, Innovation 7 Research, Mr Alok Nanda, Co-Chair of National Mission on Technology, Innovation & Research, Dr Ashish Mohan, Executive Director, CII and Mr Ryuhei Nishi, First Secretary, S&T, Embassy of Japan attended the event.
During the ceremony, the senior adviser at the Department of Science and Technology (DST), who is also the Secretary of the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), Dr Akhilesh Gupta said that India lacks the culture of patent filing. He noted that while China grants an average of five lakhs patents per annum, India, despite having over 1000 universities, grants only around 23,000. Dr Gupta added that the time duration of patent filing and grant of patents is three years in India, while the global average is two years.
It is noteworthy that with the implementation of NEP-2020, all funding agencies of research in India will merge into a single entity: National Research Foundation (NRF) for both basic research and high-quality innovation.
While noting that only around 0.69 per cent of the budget is being spent on R&D in India, Dr Akhilesh Gupta opined that the private sector must pitch in with higher research allocation to match and support governed for a win-win proposition. Talking about startups, he said that out of 90,000 odd start-ups in India, only 12,000 are technology-based and also only about 3,000 of them are deep tech start-ups. As per him, unless the industry lends funding support to innovative and bright ideas, India will miss the bus, which is now on its way to full bloom. He also underlined the efforts of DST to completely re-orient and transform the R&D infrastructure of 350 state universities with the help of state governments.
The scientific secretary in the office of Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India, Dr Parvinder Maini also addressed the gathering during the inaugural session. Maini believes that the era of working in silos is over now, and the government, industry, academia and start-ups should join hands to co-produce and co-develop world-class products and solutions. She further suggested that the main reason behind the low R&D budget in India is the almost non-participation of the private sector in taking big risks in emerging and cutting-edge technologies.
Ex-Officio Principal Secretary of the S&T Department of Kerala, Prof K.P Sudheer addressed the gathering by saying that four science parks will be established in the state in the coming days with participation from industry and start-ups. He underlined that Kerala is the only state in the country with a separate R&D budget document while noting Rs 3500 crore as this year’s allocation.
Mr Ryuhei Nishi, First Secretary, S&T, Embassy of Japan opined that India and Japan are natural allies and human resources of both countries should join hands to deliver the best STI products matching global standards. Lamenting that only 1000 Indian students are there in Japan, which is 8 times less than in China, he said that there is a need for more people to people contact.
